this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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LocalLLaMA
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Well Wikipedia wasn't invented when I went to school and our teachers were very keen on us using encyclopedias and calculators - maybe your tech regressive attitude is cultural.
If you think using a calculator is just pressing buttons and cheating then you'd have to have stopped at a very basic level not much more advanced than basic multiplication and division - likewise gpt, if you think it's just pressing a button and getting the answer then you're using it for very simple tasks, certainly not scratching the surface of it's or your own capabilities. A skilled and engaged user doing extra steps is getting very different results to how you say it's used, this is the difference between a low graded homework and an A+ piece of work.
I think we're talking past each other here.
Prompt engineering language models and knowing how the arc of suspense is supposed to work in a novella are two entirely different things and skill sets. It kind of depends what you're trying to teach.
Are you able to calculate if a large pizza is more expensive or cheaper than two small pizzas just with a calculator, without storing basic concepts about how circles work inside of your brain?
Having knowledge about concepts, being literate and able to connect thoughts is what makes you smart. And things add up once problems start to become more difficult than mere examples. Try and be a philosopher without reading anything about Adorno, Kant and the ancient greeks because you "can look it up".... Using a calculator or encyclopedia and modern computer tools is the 5% on top that makes you fast and excel at things. 95% is hard work. And that is why I think focusing on teaching it that way is the right thing to do. And then add the 5% on top. Just don't skip that like my teachers sometimes did. Background knowledge is important to have. So are applied skills and to know how to use your tool kit.
Exactly, and using modern tools like calculators is what allows people to focus on learning background knowledge and theory - you can easily use computer to determine the area of a two circles and the price of each per square centimetre without having to remember formula or do mental arithmetic, someone who does it by hand is going to take longer thus giving the other the advantage of being able to do far more complex questions in the same amount of time - like comparing the calorific intake from various sizes and topped pizzas and constructing a nice graph or table to show results.
The truth is we currently accept a very low quality in everything right from kids homework to media reporting on politics, when we adapt to using AI tools to help construct articles we'll start seeing much better made augments and much better analysis - things like actual fact checking will become the norm instead of a six month project that blows everyone's minds but then gets forgotten.
Imagine a world where journalists job isn't to string pretty words together but to get stories and give them context, where experts opinions get included rather than overlooked because the person writing the article simply has no idea there's a whole scientific body that studies the field and instead blindly trusts some corporate spokespersons press release, where a journalist doesn't have to spend thirty hours reading through archives trying to determine if the subject of his story has related history but can simply say 'give a detailed breakdown of accusations of safety violations from Dupont'
Of course there will still be a lot of writing to do, not in the key pressing way where you waste an hour trying to think of a good word to describe butter beans but looking at paragraphs and saying 'that's a bit dense, split the bit about shell poisoning the Niger Delta into it's own paragraph then add a short summary of the economic cost from the data we were looking at in section 1'
Being able to focus on the important things will make us able to produce better stuff - schools that teach how to use AI are going to make students who are able to compete and contribute in the modern world, schools that try to force their students to live in 1990 are going to produce kids that've already been left behind.